Sometimes You Need A Little Explosion
by marshmeg
Summary: This is a tag to 8x05 Dead Air, a look into the life of Tony and Ziva at the end of the day when they stop pretending.  It's short and sweet, and hopefully will put a smile on your face.


**This is a tag to 8x05 Dead Air, a look into the life of Tony and Ziva at the end of the day when they stop pretending. It's short and sweet, and hopefully will put a smile on your face. Thank you in advance for reviews! They are greatly appreciated. **

**DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately I only own the DVD's. **

Ziva, followed closely behind by Tony, slowly ascended the stairs to her third floor apartment. It had been a tiring and completely exhausting couple of days and she was ready to relax. She reached her door, fiddled with her keys and finally stepped into what she liked to call her personal oasis. Warm colors splashed the walls, a fresh pumpkin spice scent filled her nostrils, and the cozy apartment was a nice change compared to cooler air DC had recently encountered in the past days. The leaves were beginning to cover the streets and she definitely required a coat and hat on her morning runs, what could she say; fall was certainly in the air.

Ziva and Tony wordlessly unloaded their guns and badges, tucking them safely away into their respective safes and headed into the bedroom to change into sweats and t-shirts. Tony finally broke the silence.

"I didn't know you knew so much about baseball," He commented briefly on her and Gibbs escapades from earlier, "you've got great form, how old were you when your father taught you?"

"Oh I don't know, we used to play a lot as a family before the politics of Israel and Mossad took over our lives, before Eli was the deputy director of an entire agency." Ziva stated simply, reminiscing the days when baseball after family supper was a given. "I tried to tell you several times today that I knew a thing or two about baseball, that it was not just an "American" thing as you were saying earlier. There is an Israel Baseball League, you know, the IBL, I believe there are six professional teams."

"You're kidding." Tony announced

"Why would I kid about that?" Ziva answered confused

"No, no, that's not what I meant, I mean, like you're not kidding, I was just surprised to find that out, maybe you'll have to explain that to me sometime." Tony course corrected.

"I could, I am not too familiar with the teams now or if they even exist but we used to be big fans of the Tel Aviv Lightning, they were quite good."

Mentally locking away the teams name for possible birthday or Christmas, or Hanukkah gifts, Tony smirked "Ha, Tel Aviv Lightning, really rolls off your tongue doesn't it?"

Ziva mumbled something in Hebrew alluding to the fact that Tony is and will always be a child, "I guess _motek_, can we just relax now?"

Although he had no idea what Ziva had mumbled, he had become very fond of Ziva's affectionate nickname for him, "Well of course sweet cheeks, I was thinking that we should have a marathon of some sorts, it is Friday, we are not on call and we have the entire weekend for ourselves." Tony responded gingerly.

"You know I hate that nickname."

"I know"

"Then why do you use it?"

"Because it make's your skin wrinkle on your forehead in this super cute way, and then you kind of get this look on your face where you can decide between smacking me or kissing me and I love that about you, that's why." He grabbed her by the waist and kissed her passionately, "I've been waiting all day to do that you know."

Ziva couldn't help but smile, she got up on her toes and returned the kiss, against maybe the best of judgments, she turned and padded down the hallway into the living room. Thanks to Tony's wonderful decorating sense, she had a large L shaped couch that sat in front of what only men could describe as a masterpiece, a 52 inch LCD television complete with surround sound and all the HD channels a man could ask for, Tony had even gotten her a Play Station, she wasn't quite sure what it was or what it did, but Tony could play his Blu Ray thing-a-ma-bobs and even scream, shoot, steam, stream, what was the word? either way movies appeared directly to her television and she wasn't exactly clear on how or why someone could want or need such a thing, but it made Tony happy and in turn she was happy.

Tony settled onto the L portion of the couch, he stretched his legs out and molded into the comfortable cushions. This allowed Ziva to elongate her body and rest her head on Tony's lap, their favorite position to just "veg" out in, as Tony would say, she didn't even want to explain how that idiom confused her, why would someone lay like a vegetable, aren't vegetables healthy, maybe lay like a potato chip?

As Tony was busily searching for the correct remote to turn on all of the devices that were needed for optimal viewing, he chirped in, "so, you know you really didn't need to protect me today, I was perfectly capable of hitting the deck on my own."

"I know _motek_," Ziva lovingly patted Tony's chest, not letting Tony onto the extreme fear and heart palpitations she suffered when she realized a bomb would be exploding and love of her life maybe in its path, "But if I can find a reason to jump into your arms at work, without raising too much suspicion, I'm going to take that risk, it was quite nice you know."

"I knew it!" Tony responded excitedly, accepting Ziva's answer for what it was but knowing deep down that she was truly worried for him at that moment in time, "from now on feel free to take those risks whenever you see fit."

"I will be on the lookout, scouts honor," Ziva put her hand to her head and saluted, "is that what you say?"

"Yes indeed, one of the many ways to make a promise, I will also promise to stop trying to get into your email and apologize for causing you to go to McGee just to catch me being snoopy."

"I think McGee rather enjoyed helping me out, you know this email friend is just a friend and you will meet him soon enough." Ziva responded coyly.

With that, Tony leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Ziva's lips and then to her forehead, "I know ahava, I know."

"And babe," Ziva announced "That is definitely not your knee."

END

"motek" – kind of slang for sweetheart/sweety pie

"ahava" – Love

_Thank you for reading, I hope it put just as big of smile on your face as it did for me when I was writing it__ I'm still new to the FanFiction writing and will lovingly take any and all reviews. _


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